The Short Road Home
by Amber Penglass
Summary: Six months after the defeat of the Kett and the settling of the Milky Way peoples' new home, everyone's favorite asari freeloader interrupts Sara and Jaal's night off at his sister's wedding to let them know she found something that might be just a teensy eensy important...like a Prothean relic, locked inside a Remnant ruin that has not been touched in hundreds of years.
1. Chapter 1

**The Short Road Home**

 **Amber Penglass**

 **Chapter One**

The dress, when Jaal presented it to Sara, fit surprisingly well. It had clearly begun its life as an angaran gown, but a few clever modifications allowed it to look like it had been made for her all along.

"Alright, I confess, I thought your mother was pulling my leg with the 'he's good at sewing' bit," Sara Ryder said sheepishly, turning in front of the slender bit of mirror, smiling at her purple companion in its reflection.

Jaal came up behind her and slipped his big hands around her waist, flattening his palms against her belly as he pulled her back into him. She went easily; she liked being held, and he liked holding. One of the many things about them that matched up quite nicely like that.

"Another idiom to add to my collection? I like this one. 'Pulling your leg,'" Jaal echoed, his whiskey-rumble voice doing things to her insides that, given their location, she had no choice but to staunchly ignore. Sex under a waterfall? Check. Sex in the Tempest's engine room? Check. Tech room, bridge, various planets? Check, check, and check.

But his mother's house? The morning of his sister's wedding?

No.

Sara had to draw a line _somewhere_.

As if the universe had seen fit to stamp its seal of approval on Sara's restraint, the door to Jaal's childhood room burst open. Jaal did not move away, but the trek his left hand had begun to make southward did halt abruptly.

"Jaal! You must come, quickly!" The angaran male who stood in the door was familiar, so Sara assumed they'd been introduced in the whirlwind of activity she'd arrived amid that morning, but she couldn't remember his name to save her life. Something starting with an 'S.' Saruul? Suraal?

"Take a breath, Rasuul," Jaal told him, releasing Sara to approach the distraught man.

Sara sighed internally; so much for starting with an 'S.'

Jaal went with Saruul, the groom's brother as far as Sara understood, and left Sara to finish getting ready. She wasn't quite sure what else to do with herself. They were all supposed to be barefoot, and only the bride and groom were permitted ornaments. She didn't think the hairless angaran would even notice if her hair was arrayed differently from her normal red-brown ponytail, and as far as she knew she was the only non-angaran expected to be present. Not only present, but involved.

' _Sehrusca,'_ Jaal's sister had called it, the group of females -sisters, cousins, nieces, but absolutely no mothers or aunts- picked by the bride to advise her the morning of her nuptials. The pale lavender angaran woman had approached Sara to ask her to be part of her _Sehrusca_ on Sara's second visit to the family compound, well before the events that had seen the Milky Way races settled on Miridian. Sara had half expected to be politely forgotten, or to have the invitation rescinded once the bride realized Sara wasn't going anywhere and she'd actually have to follow through.

Instead, nearly a week prior, Sara had received a package with the dress, a fruit with a rind like stone, a stylized pen, and a small notebook of some kind of thick, ridged paper. Jaal had walked in on her standing at her desk, items in hand, staring at the mass of angaran textiles in utter bewilderment. He'd laughed his deep, unashamed laugh and explained the significance of each traditional item. All women in the _Sehrusca_ would receive the same package and wear the same gown, to symbolize all their advice was equally welcome. The pen and book were for her to put down the advice she planned to give, so the bride would have a permanent record. The fruit was a gift; the gift varied from bride to bride, some giving jewelry or scented oils.

She'd tried the dress on while Jaal had set to work on the fruit with his belt knife, promising she'd love it. He'd promptly forgotten the treat and the knife in his hand a few moments later when she'd exclaimed, laughing, that it was a good thing her breasts were small, otherwise the dress would never have fit, even as poorly as it did. The look on his face when he'd looked up from his task had been the only warning she'd received before fruit and knife had been dropped in favor of filling his hands with _her_.

' _Remembering that is Not Helping,'_ Sara thought to herself when she realized that heat in her belly was back. Her reflection was that of a preoccupied woman, face flushed. She cleared her throat, turned sharply from the mirror, and reached up to let her hair down. Even if none of the angaran would understand the concept of formal updo's, _she_ did, and she wanted to be sure she showed Jaal's sister she was grateful to be included.

In the common room of the sprawling house Sara found the other women, all in the same dress she wore. They were arrayed on colorful cushions around low tables filled with small bits of actual food instead of the nutrient paste that was the angaran daily staple. Sara recognized slices of the stone-rine fruit.

The angaran women spotted her and exclaimed over her arrival, praising Jaal's handiwork. The bride herself, Tevehra, peered at Sara with wide eyes, then swore to Sara she'd never thought of whether or not the gown would fit her alien form.

"You have my apologies, _pahvara_ ," Tevehra said, coming over to clasp her hands. Her own gown was a mixture of blues and greens and pinks on a background of indigo, like a rainbow embedded in the surface of oil. Her jewelry reminded Sara of the ornaments the Moshae wore.

"None are needed," Sara replied easily. In the back of her mind, she asked, ' _Pahvara?'_

 _~It means, roughly, 'sister in law,' Pathfinder,~_ SAM provided in the back of Sara's mind. _~Or perhaps, 'adopted sister.'~_

' _Thank you,'_ Sara thought back at her AI passenger.

From a pocket in the gown, Sara withdrew her little book, dutifully filled with as many non-species specific bits of wisdom as she could think of. Or, rather, as many as she could pry out of Lexi and Vetra, both of whom were older and had the advantage of having been in cross-species relationships before, two things that put them a step above Sara's own experiences. Six months of bouncing around the Heleus Cluster with Jaal hardly made her an expert.

As it turned out, Sara hardly had to worry; most of the advice was shockingly, blatantly sexual, and she spent most of the morning laughing so hard tears streamed down her face. One of the stylized pens was produced midway, and many women added things to their books of advice as the gathering progressed. When Sara was asked, directly, if she personally had any bedroom wisdom to offer, she blinked in surprise.

"You do realize the only, ah, _angaran_ experiences I've had were with your brother?" She asked, absolutely stunned that her voice came out steady. Laughter was threatening to take her voice.

Tevehra grinned widely at her, the two rows of narrow, flat teeth reminding Sara of tiny piano keys. "Second brother," the bride said. "His true mother is my true mother's sister."

"Ah," Sara said, as if that explained everything. So this was Jaal's cousin? Not sister? But sister in angaran culture, apparently. So then what counted as a cousin? Angaran family group dynamics seemed to be as complicated as their approach to handling emotions was simple.

"Is discussing such things of your own brother not done?" One of the other women asked Sara. "Is it it taboo to know? Secret?"

Sara snickered. She couldn't help it. "Scott's conquests? Secret? If they're supposed to be, no one ever told him."

Somehow, Sara managed to steer the conversation back to the bride. They passed the morning nibbling on sweets and fruit, sipping water that tingled the throat, and sharing the most ribald things they could contrive. By the time Tevehra's true mother arrived to fetch the bride to the ceremony, which would actually be private, Sara was more comfortable than she could recall being in a long time. She had been assured the tingly water was non-alcoholic, but she was beginning to wonder; she was not normally given to such loopy grins without booze involved. Then again, when Jaal found her and gave her that slow, one-sided grin of his, there was more than one thing that could make her loopy.

"You enjoyed yourself," he observed when he was near enough to speak. Watching him cross the grassy expanse of the compound's courtyard, filled with tables and decorations for the celebration, had been enjoyable all on its own, but she knew that wasn't what he'd meant.

"Very much so," she said. He reached out and took her hand. Touching her was second nature to him; if she was within reach, there was contact. She had begun to not always notice when his fingers would trail down an arm, brush across her back, or -his favorite- tuck a stray strand of hair out of the way.

"What did you discuss that has you smiling so?" He asked, in a way that was more sly than she was used to from him.

"Nuh-uh," she replied, wiggling a finger in front of his nose. "Your sister warned me. _Sehrusca_ talks are solemn, private things, the sanctity of which- hey, stop laughing, I'm serious!" But she couldn't keep her expression straight for anything; she laughed along with him. Apprently he knew quite well what went on among the women of a _Sehrusca_.

"Come," he said, and hooked an arm around her waist to pull her along. "The true celebration does not begin until Tevehra and Sahrul return from their communion, but we are permitted some entertainment in the meantime. Forgive me, but I do not think I have ever asked- do you make music?"

"Mom insisted Scott and I have lessons when we were little," she confessed. "Really little. I think I was five when I started. Six when I made my flute teacher cry for the last time."

The table Jaal led her to was laden with an handful of instruments that were unmistakably musical in nature. From it he selected a small, round wooden bowl-shaped thing spread with a myriad of strings and knobs. He pushed it into her hands, as excited as he'd once been about a box of dismembered Kett rifle parts.

"This is a veleh," he said. And, as if he had not just been trying to hand it to her, he pulled it back into his own grip and plucked at the strings with his thumb. It's sound was a little like the tissue-box-and-rubber-band-banjo's she'd once made in kindergarten. Behind Jaal, someone picked up a larger version of the same instrument, and began to play in earnest. Unlike Sara, this angaran clearly knew how to put notes together in pleasant ways.

More angaran arrived for the celebrations as the late morning progressed. Some took up an instrument and played, some sang, others removed themselves to quiet tables to converse. The air of Aya warmed, filled with the sweet scents of the flowers growing in the corners of the courtyard. She and Jaal passed the time with him trying to show her how to play the little veleh, which she began to understand was a child's scaled-down version.

By the time the newly married couple returned, the late morning had transitioned to midday, then afternoon. Only when the sun had begun its descent into early evening, and the courtyard was full of guests, did the true mothers of the newlyweds announced the newlyweds and kick off the real party. The tingly waters and juices that came out then were _definitely_ alcoholic.

"Never thought I'd think of a catholic wedding ceremony as short," Sara quipped, mostly to herself, as the lights came on, even though it was not yet quite dark enough to need them. They glittered prettily against the deepening blue of the sky.

 _~In some earth cultures, wedding ceremonies last several days, and the celebrations a week or more,~_ SAM provided in her mind.

Sara didn't respond as Jaal returned with a pair of glasses for them both, something dark and thick for himself, something pale blue with glittering swirls for her. It was light and sweet and made her head spin in a way that was pleasant rather than nauseating. Some of that spinning might have had something to do with the way Jaal was twirling them both around the tables; there was no dance floor. Dancers leaped and spun and skipped between the tables and chairs, brushing their hands along the shoulders and crests of the seated guests they passed. No one seemed the mind the familiarness of the touches, even though some of them had to come from near strangers.

At Jaal's urging, Sara allowed herself to trail her fingers along the shoulders of a few she passed that she knew. She couldn't quite bring herself to invade a stranger's personal space like that, not just yet. She was rewarded with friendly smiles, encouraging waves. Something warm that had nothing to do with arousal or liquor spread through her.

 _~Pathfinder,~_ SAM said into her mind when she collapsed, laughing and short of breath, into a chair. At a wave of her hand, Jaal kept on dancing. _~Sara. Your omnitool is receiving an urgent message. Several of them, in fact.~_

Sara's laughter abated. SAM wouldn't bother her with this unless it was important. Owing to the tradition that only the bride and groom were to don jewelry, Sara had left her omnitool cuff behind in Jaal's room, trusting SAM to relay any important messages. Which, apparently, he was doing.

 _~From who?~_ She asked. To keep from mouthing the words, a habit she fell into when she was tired or inebriated, she picked up another glass of the swirly blue liquor and sipped.

 _~PeeBee,~_ was the reply. _~She is adamant this is something you need to know about, as it involves Protheans.~_

Sara frowned into her drink. While everyone back in the Milky Way knew at least a little about Protheans, true experts were less common, and almost none had opted to join the Initiative. Why go somewhere that their life's work would be meaningless? The only person Sara knew of who could be stylized an expert was still in cryo. Sara herself was probably the next best thing, owing to her time spent at digs, guarding them from pirates.

 _~Tell her that unless something is on fire, broken, bleeding to death, or involves Scott, it can wait until after tonight.~_ Sometimes, Sara began to empathize with her unconscious mother. Those times frequently involved PeeBee.

There was a pause, then SAM came back with, _~While I highly doubt she is being truthful, PeeBee claims something is indeed on fire.~_

Sara let loose a rough bark of laughter, then sighed, put her drink down, and got up from the table to meander back inside. She tried to spot Jaal to give him some sort of signal, but the bright blue of that garment of his that normally let her find him anywhere was lost in the sea of similar shades of blue worn by other guests.

Inside, Sara retrieved her omnitool, keyed past the wall of alerts from PeeBee demanding her immediate attention, and opened a channel directly to her shiny new science officer (someday Sara would forgive Suvi for leaving, but not today).

"Ryder!" PeeBee exclaimed, her black-smeared eyes taking up the whole of the vidscreen. "There you are! I've been trying to get ahold of you _forever!_ "

"What is it, Peebs?" Sara asked. "I'm kind of in the middle of thoroughly enjoying myself."

The eyes blinked. "But you have clothes on."

Sara snickered. "For now. What is it? I was supposed to be off limits tonight, remember?"

"Ooooooh that's why there was a big 'do not disturb unless it's an emergency' auto reply. Probably shouldn't have ignored those."

"Ya think?" Sara sighed. "Well, I'm here now. Seriously, what is it? And what's on fire?"

The eyebrows above the eyes waggled in a way that told Sara PeeBee was spending too much time with her brother. "Your panties, apparently." She sniggered at her own cleverness, then went on, "No, seriously, this is big. I found a fucking Prothean relic, Ryder! Here, in Andromeda!"

"It was probably stolen from the Nexus during the uprising," Sara said with a tired sigh. Whatever the blue alcohol had been, it apparently burned out of a human system quickly. "Some people brought a few with them, you know."

"Yeeeeah, but _those_ are all accounted for," the asari replied.

"So someone snuck one aboard they weren't supposed to have. You know the Council tracked all Prothean stuff religiously, and with heavy fees."

" _Ryder_ ," PeeBee said, and something about the inflection on her name banished some of Sara's partied-all-day weariness. PeeBee had backed away from the camera, enough so Sara could see Zap's tendrils dangling in the background. And also see PeeBee's serious expression. It took a moment to penetrate Sara's fogged mind- PeeBee looked serious. _PeeBee._

"What else aren't you saying?" Sara asked.

"Ok, so, don't be mad," PeeBee said in a rush. "But you know that Remnant ruin on Eledaan you told me to leave alone because Morda had dibs on it?"

Sara narrowed her eyes. "The one that she threatened to load with enough booby traps to make a batarian pirate jealous? And the one I said that I'd strap you to the hull during liftoff if you ever went near it? Yeah, I faintly recall that."

PeeBee ducked her head and gave her cheekiest, most winsome smile, and said, "Oh, good, you remember, that saves me the time of reminding you. I might have found my Prothean relic there. You know, inside? As in, sealed up? Behind a door that's really, really, really, really times I-don't-know old?"

Sara blinked.

"Well, shit."

"Yeah. Thought you'd say that. So, see you tomorrow?"

Sara and Jaal had been planning to spend the rest of the week on Aya meeting with the Resistance and perhaps revisiting a certain tropical waterfall.

"Yeah," she said. "See you tomorrow."


	2. Chapter 2

**The Short Road Home**

 **Amber Penglass**

 **Chapter Two**

Jaal found her soon after Sara disconnected from PeeBee, frowning pensively at her omnitool.

"Has it offended you somehow?" He asked, and the teasing was enough to pull her from berating herself for not bringing along more Prothean data from the Milky Way. Then again, how could she have predicted needing it?

"Not directly," she replied. She offered him a tense smile. "Sorry I disappeared on you. SAM let me know PeeBee was blowing up my inbox."

Bless the man, he took her phrasing in stride, and the need to do rapid translations from 'blowing up' to mean 'filled up quickly' only made him pause for a brief heartbeat. Then he took in her tense posture, and crossed the room in two short steps of his long legs. He pulled the omnitool from her grasp, and put it aside on his desk. Then his big, warm hands were sliding around her hips, the thin fabric of the gown no barrier to his electric touch. She stepped into his warmth readily, feeling some of the unexpected tension from PeeBee's _really_ unexpected news ease away. One of his hands left her torso to slip behind her neck, the expanse of skin made readily accessible by her hair being haphazardly up in pins. The slight tingle that vibrated between his skin and hers wherever they touched was as good as a massage, in the right places. The back of her neck was one of those right places. His fingers took up a rhythm that made her close her eyes and sigh.

She _really_ liked angarans. Specifically this one. She was pretty sure she was gonna keep him. Feed him and water him and exercise him and everything.

"Tell me, darling one," he said, when she was halfway to being reduced to putty.

"How much have you gotten through in the Cultural Center?" She asked him, opening her eyes.

"All but Elcor Hamlet," he said. "Since, as I recall, you said you wanted to be there for that."

She snickered inelegantly, remembering in a rush. "I'm in no hurry. And neither should you be, trust me."

She put her hands on his chest and quizzed him briefly on what he'd learned at the Center, since she herself had never accessed the files on Protheans that could be found in the Cultural Center. Given her hands-on background with Prothean tech and relics, she had hardly thought she needed the tourist-glossed version provided. Jaal, however, had not spent his early twenties guarding sites and shipments from pirates and opportunists.

When she was satisfied with what he'd read up on, she told him what PeeBee had told her, and saw his galaxy-filled eyes widen with appreciation for the implications.

"We guesstimate that finding those sites on Mars gave human advancement a thousand-year leap or more," she told him, fingers tracing the lines of his raised chest bones absently through his clothes. "Despite that, not a whole lot is known about them."

"Yet you are shocked to find evidence of their presence here in an Andromeda?" He asked.

"The Protheans built the relay system that made the Milky Way so easily traversable," she said, quoting commonly accepted facts. "We figured if they _had_ ever gone to Andromeda, they would have built one here to make repeat trips easier. Once we were getting reliable looks into Heleus, relays were the first thing we looked for, even though there's never been a shred of evidence indicating Protheans ever came out this way."

"That you found," he pointed out.

"That we found," she admitted.

"Perhaps I am missing something," he said. "But I am not quite seeing cause for alarm, Sara. This is unexpected, yes? But they are, according to you, fifty-thousand years extinct. Any ramifications their presence may have had is long departed."

"Famous last words," Sara said with a wince. Then she sighed, and pulled back somewhat from his embrace. "I was a scientist before I was anything else worthwhile, Jaal. The idea that we- not just humans, but even the asari- missed something this monumental in our home galaxy's history? That's...well, that makes me worry. What else did we get wrong?"

Unbidden, her father's inherited-via-SAM memories rose in the back of her thoughts. Reapers, monsters from the dark of space, things that couldn't possibly be real…

Jaal's hands left her waist and her neck to cup her face in their warmth. He exerted just enough pressure to make her raise her face again.

"I do not know much about these Protheans whose detritus has you so worried, but I do know you are quite wrong about something else."

She quirked an eyebrow, waiting.

"You were worthwhile from the moment you came into existence." From anyone else, the words would have been overflowing with drama and painful awkwardness. From Jaal? Mr. Heart-Shamelessly-On-His-Sleeve? It made her smile up at him with unabashed delight as something foreboding was lifted from her mood.

Sara surged up onto her toes, arms going up and over his broad shoulders for leverage. His mouth was waiting for hers when she found it, and for the rest of the night she let him make her forget all about Protheans and ominous mysteries.

In the morning they bid their goodbyes to Jaal's mother, who lamented loudly and without restraint of her regret at not getting to spend more time with her _favorite_ son. And, she'd added with a smile to Sara, getting to know Sara better. Would the human Pathfinder ever find time to spare for poor, lonely Sehuna?

Recognizing a tease -and a hint- when she heard one, Sara had promised their next visit would include a day for just the two of them. Jaal's wide, radiant smile from over his shoulder had been worth the belly full of nervous butterflies. A whole day alone with her serious boyfriend's mom? Who thought inquiries about preferred weaponry was a good icebreaker? Yeah, no pressure.

A shuttle had taken them back to Aya's main port, and from there they took a ship bound for Meridian. It wasn't the Tempest, not by a long shot, but if Sara wanted to get her way in regards to outfitting her girl with some real defenses -the offensive kind of defenses- then leaving the Tempest in drydock for retrofits, and traveling commercial, was the price she'd have to pay.

As soon as they were settled in their cabin for the duration of the voyage, Jaal tossed her a data chip.

"From the Resistance," he said. "They transmitted the information to me when I told them we would not be staying after all."

"Oh goodie, homework," Sara replied without any real resentment. She popped the chip into her omnitool, got comfortable in one of the seats, and set to scrolling through the info. Across from her, Jaal did the same.

Most of the information was more of the same they'd been receiving on the regular. Attack patterns, sites lost, sites taken back, slaves rescued, settlements captured. Since the Archon's defeat, conflict with the Kett seemed to have intensified. Sara, along with Evfra and many others, had seen immediately that whoever had replaced the Archon did not share his chaotic tactics. This new leader, whoever they were, was precise, thorough, and clever.

Something new caught Sara's eye towards the end of her perusal of the data. Her Science Face firmly in place, she pulled up the vid with a flick of her fingers. The images played out, hued in orange, across the air in front of her. She paused it at a particular point, squinted, then played it again.

"Jaal," she called, distractedly. Her purple companion looked up from his own task, and blinked at her.

"Hm?"

"What does this remind you of?" With another flick, she sent the bit of the vid she had clipped and highlighted from her omnitool to his. A glitter of orange particles hit the air between them, and then the vid popped up above Jaal's omnitool. The images were reversed, but she could still track what was playing out; a Kett in unfamiliar armor, surging across a battlefield to smash a fist into an angaran face. A bloom of sickly green light flared around the Kett's fist as the genetic monstrosity leaped into the air, then brought his fist smashing down into the ground. Behind him, two angaran who had been trying to flank him went flying back.

Then, the Kett retreated behind a barricade. A moment later he was rising up, the green glow gone, a shimmer of blue slithering across his armor in a pattern like a fishnet. It was obviously a shield of some sort, but very unlike the Kett shielding she'd encountered in the past. And the way the Kett had transitioned tactics…

"I do not want to draw conclusions from so little," Jaal said after watching and rewatching the bit. "But I would say I am reminded of watching you in battle, with your partnership with SAM."

"Was afraid of that," Sara said, a sinking feeling in her gut. After six months of not seeing any evidence that the Archon had been smart enough to make back ups of the data he'd ripped from Scott's head, she had begun to hope she never would.

"It would have been foolish to think they would give up on replicating your SAM," Jaal said, a mixture of steadfastness and weariness in his voice. She empathized. Even after the Archon had been reduced to inert meat, there was the chance that the information of what SAM was and what he could do would reach other Kett authorities, who would recognize the immeasurable value of such a powerful, versatile AI. Giving the Pathfinders the ability to swap abilities and tactics mid-fight without mental backlash was only one of them.

 _~I feel as though I should be blushing, Pathfinder,~_ SAM said, silently. Sara's lips quirked in a half smile.

 _~Have you been working on your humor algorithms again?~_ She asked.

 _~Why would I need to work on perfection?~_ Was the reply. Sara choked back a laugh. Jaal glanced at her, but said nothing; he'd become accustomed to her random noises.

 _~You're spending too much time in Scott's head,~_ she told him. _~He's bad for you.~_

 _~That is precisely what he says about you,~_ SAM observed. Then, after a pause, _~I take it from your responses this was a successful attempt at humor?~_

 _~I think 'banter' would be a better word, but yes,~_ Sara told him. _~Good job.~_

 _~Thank you. I will add this exchange to my algorithms.~_

"Suggest to Evfra that they try to capture that Kett, or one like him if there's more," Sara said. She made a face. "I really hope there isn't more." An army of Kett-Pathfinders? God, there was a nightmare they didn't need. They were settling Meridian and the other outposts as fast as possible without tipping over the whole precarious table, waking people up as soon as there was both a need and sufficient resources (read; food), but it would still take another year before all humans, salarians, krogan, asari, and turians were awake. Minimum. Then there was the quarian ark, with its drell and hanar guests…

There was a welcome party, of sorts, waiting for Sara and Jaal when their ship docked on (in?) Meridian.

"See, this is proof I should be your favorite," PeeBee said cheerily when they were within earshot. "I was the only one who loves you two enough to be here to greet you home with a warm, friendly face, and-"

"Oiy!" Came a shout from farther away. Sara looked past PeeBee, down the length of the docking bay, and spied a familiar mop of dark curls. Liam came jogging up, his running clothes telling Sara how he'd spent his morning.

"Nice try, Peebs," Liam said in between gasps.

"Almost worked," the asari replied with a shrug.

Sara exchanged a glance with Jaal, then raised an eyebrow at her shipmates, and waited.

Liam grinned up at her from his bent-over-hands-on-knees pose and said, "She told us your ship was landing this afternoon. Little did the liar know, one of the guys in the control tower is a mate of mine." He smirked over at PeeBee as he straightened. "Cora will be pissed. My jogging route happens to take me near here, but she's across town."

"So it's officially a town, now?" Sara asked. PeeBee, no longer the center of attention, had turned to make her way towards a small shuttle waiting for them.

"Yep. Calling it New New New York," Liam said. Sara reached out a hand and jabbed him in the side, hard. She _did_ have a twin brother; she knew where to poke. "Ow! Kidding! They had a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week. This is officially the capitol, home of the Hyperion Center, and has been dubbed Thessiala."

"After the asari homeworld?" Sara asked, surprised. If she recalled correctly, the 'la' suffix on 'Thessia' made it 'Thessia Renewed.' Liam gave a one-shouldered shrug.

"The plan is to name the major cities on Meridian after all the races' homeworlds."

"I figured the asari would save 'New Thessia' for when they colonized the asari homeworld, whenever they pick one."

"The new Council is arguing against single-species planets," PeeBee said over her shoulder. "Something about we should all be inclusive and welcoming and non-elitist and blah blah snore."

"I'd love to be in the room when Tann tells the quarians they _still_ don't get a homeworld of their own," Sara drawled, half to herself. The quarians she'd known were particularly prickly on that topic, and rightly so.

"I will meet with you later, Sara," Jaal said into her ear, his hand at her elbow. Her name on his lips did funny things to her nethers, somehow even moreso than his casual use of 'darling one.' He gestured to his omnitool, his expression meaningful. She nodded; communications via their transport to Meridian had not been secure enough to risk opening a channel to Evfra on Aya, and both felt their observations about the Maybe-Kett-Pathinder development could not wait. Even understanding the necessity, she watched him walk away to another shuttle with a sigh.

"So, if you guys don't mind a bit of manly musk, wanna grab a late breakfast?" Liam asked when they were settled in their own shuttle, sans one purple angaran. "I can tell Cora and them to meet us wherever."

Sara shot PeeBee a look. The woman widened her eyes innocently and raised her hands, palm up, in an exaggerated shrug.

"What?" She asked. "I figured something like this was a need-to-know. Wasn't that something you drilled into me? Not blabbing everything I could?"

Liam's gaze darted back between the asari and the human. "If it involves you two, I definitely need to know. If nothing else, to make sure nothing burns down."

"Har de har," Sara shot back. "Tell him, PeeBee. And yes, Liam, food sounds wonderful, but maybe later." Aside from the tidbits that had been served at the wedding, she hadn't eaten solid food since she and Jaal had left for Aya. She wondered if the genome-bank had released the genetic blueprints for hogs, yet? If Sid could have cats, Sara should be able to have pigs. What she wouldn't give for bacon…

Liam swore colorfully and with much variety when PeeBee had finished relaying the tale of her find, pulling Sara from her daydreams of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes.

"You're sure it's Prothean?" He asked for the third time.

"Kinda hard to mistake the stuff, but that's why I summoned our personal Prothean expert here," PeeBee said with a grand gesture in Sara's direction.

"Hardly an expert," Sara protested. "If this really is Prothean, I'm going to put in a recommendation for Thalia Arrise to be woken from cryo. She really is -was- an Prothean expert for a few hundred years back in the Milky Way. I worked with her on a number of digs before the Initiative."

"Why'd she leave the Milky Way if her expertise was only relevant back home?" Liam wondered aloud.

Sara shrugged. "In her words? She wanted to explore something that didn't remind her of 'the business end of a batarian the morning after visiting a vorcha-run sushi joint on Omega.' She loved mysteries and ancient things, but hated getting dirty."

"Maybe she just never got the right kind of dirty," PeeBee said with yet another eyebrow waggle. Sara really needed to have a talk with Scott..

Entering the Hyperion was a considerably more complicated process than it had once been. In space, controlling who came and went was relatively simple. Now that the hull of the heavily damaged ark was being converted into a permanent structure, however, the access points outnumbered the people available to guard them threefold, which meant the entire thing had been cordoned off except for one narrow entry point, with a long line to go with it. Once past that, there was ID checking, and rechecking, and verifying the person you were visiting was actually there, and then conveyance to what would eventually be the Hyperion Center's main entrance.

"I smell Tann's involvement," Sara groused when they were through all the checkpoints.

"Oh, that's what that was? I thought it was the scent of needless bureaucracy and autofellatio. If, you know, those things had scents. And if salarians had actual dicks instead of...whatever they have," a cocky voice rambled on from behind Sara. She whirled, grinning even before she spotted her twin. Scott's arms opened almost as wide as his grin, and she flung her own arms around him and squeezed tight. He returned the embrace, neither of them bothering to try to breathe for a moment.

"Welcome back," he said when he had released her. "Sunshine looks good on you."

She _had_ gained a bit of color under Aya's sun, she realized when comparing her skin next to his. The Ryder twins had always been on the pasty side of pale, but now she looked a little less like a corpse had inspired her color palette.

"Bedhead and a fear of razors looks not so good on you," she retorted, reaching up to run her fingers through his unkempt locks, the precise same shade of red-brown as her own. The stubble on his cheeks matched. He ran a hand over the roughness of his chin, smirking at her.

"Dalia -bartender at Kralla's? You met her, I think? Anyway, she says it makes me look roguish. PeeBee? What do you think? Roguish?"

"More like _devilish_ ," the asari replied, complete with batting lashes as she came up to the twins to slump against them both.

"Ooooh, I like that better," Scott said, abandoning hugging his sister in favor of looping a companionable arm around PeeBee's shoulders. They fit against one another in a way that made Sara think, again, ' _Definitely too much time together.'_

"So, Peebs tells me she found something absolutely panic-inducing, and that's why you're back ahead of schedule," Scott said, bringing them all to the point in a way that managed to seem like he _wasn't_ being the direct one.

"I wouldn't say panic-inducing," Sara replied carefully. As a group, with Liam having stood back to watch with an amused eye, they moved further away from the entrance and into the labyrinth of the Hyperion.

"Of course not," Scott agreed smoothly. "Scream-causing? Pandemonium-making?"

" _Scott._ "

"Sorry. But seriously, what's going on, sis?"

"Hopefully nothing more than something really, really, really unexpected."

"You realize you just jinxed us."

"I realize I just jinxed us," Sara conceded with a groan.

"Kay. So long as you accept blame when the time comes."

"PeeBee, you're closer. Hit him for me." Sara ordered over her shoulder.

"Ow! I thought we were good, Peebs?"

"Sorry, she pays my salary. And, you know, is kinda scary sometimes." Sara could hear the shrug in PeeBee's voice without looking back. Sara spearheaded the group's progress to the tram terminal, smiling slightly to herself. Liam came to stand at her elbow while she called up the tram to take them to the redubbed 'science wing' of the Hyperion, formerly the docking station, hydroponics, bar, weapons depot, _and_ science lab.

"You realize what this could mean? If there really were Protheans here?" He asked, quietly, while behind them PeeBee and Scott caught each other up on their latest conquests.

"You mean aside from wondering if whatever wiped them out in the Milky Way somehow followed them here? Or if the Protheans and the Remnants are somehow connected? Or if they _did_ bring a relay here and we just missed it and maybe we can jump home real quick and see our descendants? Yeah, I've realized a few of them."

Liam gave a low laugh and shot her a sidelong grin. "Just checking."

The tram arrived, and with it Sara's nerves. Her brother had proved to be a nice distraction, for a bit, but now that she could feel the hum of the tram's deck beneath her feet taking her closer to the science lab where PeeBee had said she'd stashed the relic, the anxiousness Jaal had banished with his big, gentle hands was returning with a vengeance.

At the other end of their journey the tram doors opened onto the hall that led to the old docking area, and Sara had to do a double take. It had been converted into a bay of desks, behind which a glass barricade had been erected, and beyond it bays of sanitation stations stood in neat rows. Amid the desks, a familiar redhead looked up from going over something with a cohort.

"Pathfinder!" Suvi Anwar exclaimed. "You're back! An' none too soon, I'll add!"

"Suvi," Sara greeted with a wide, genuine smile. She embraced her old science officer warmly, noting how much more comfortable the Scottish woman seemed in her slacks and lab coat. As much as she missed the redhead's presence on her bridge, there was no denying Suvi was much more at home in a lab than behind a console.

"No need to explain anything," Suvi said when she pulled back. "I know why you're here. It's safe, and I've let no one else have a peek at it. Come on, I'll give ya a tour on the way."

"I'd love a tour, Suvi, but-"

"Save it for later, science-tits," PeeBee said, swooping in and looping an arm through Suvi's to pull her along. "Impossible relics now!"

If Suvi was offended at having something she was awesome at that she'd worked for being put on the same level as something that was equally awesome but not worked for, she didn't show it. Then again, it was PeeBee- the rules of offense seemed skewed when it came to dealing with her.

The wide-open space of the docking bay had been one of the areas of the ship worst hit, but thankfully the hydroponics and offices and compartments closer to the tramway had been left mostly intact. Suvi led them all to the lab that had once been dominated by the most rock-loving salarian Sara had ever met, and where she'd once got to be present for Dr. Aridana presenting a gorgeous model of Heleus to a group of wide-eyed students. Now, most of the machines were covered with anti-static tarps, the lights all dark. When Suvi flicked a switch, only minimal lights came on.

"Power restrictions are on default in all wings. Director Tann's orders," Suvi said with a shrug as she turned on additional lights. "We're still working on tapping into Meridian's power. There's plenty of it, but getting the quantity and flow right has been a bit o' trial and error. With lots of error."

"Blew up a few things, eh?" Scott asked.

"More than a few," Suvi confessed. Scott engaged her with a few questions about things the Hyperion technicians and engineers had tried, and they were off.

Sara tuned them both out. Sitting on the table in the middle of the lab, the only table not covered with a tarp, sat a quarantine container about the size of a footlocker. She crossed to it in four long strides, and put her hands to the keypad. PeeBee, bless her occasionally insightful brain, had already given Sara access. The container's lid hissed open easily after reading her biometrics.

Inside, a silvery orb hovered above its dock, a triangular base with tiered ridges in an unmistakably Prothean pattern.

"Well you didn't need me to confirm this is Prothean," Sara said. PeeBee and Liam had come to stand beside her, while off in the corner Suvi and Scott continued to talk power problems. Neither seemed terribly concerned with the history unfolding in front of them. She thought she should feel annoyed at their nonchalance, but instead was hoping it just meant she was overthinking things. Hadn't humanity themselves sent probes out into space even before finding the ruins on Mars? Surely the Protheans had done the same thing, maybe even long enough ago for one to have reached Remnant space.

As she had done countless times before, Sara brought up her omnitool and set both it and SAM to scanning for the same things she'd scanned hundreds of other relics for, including multiple orbs. The orange light of her scanner bathed the silver globe, turning it to gold.

~Pathfinder,~ SAM said aloud almost immediately. ~This orb is different from the ones in the Nexus databanks.~

Everyone else in the lab went quiet.

"Different how, SAM?" Scott asked, his serious face in place.

~Orbs found in the Milky Way were rarely functional, and those that were seemed to be universally of the data-storing variety, clearly intended solely for Prothean use.~ SAM elaborated. ~Translating their contents has produced only a handful of viable pieces of information over the course of asari history.~

"And this one?" Sara pressed.

~This orb is broadcasting a signal I am surprised no one on the Hyperion detected,~ SAM explained. ~The signal has no gaps that I can detect, and no eroded data. The message is whole.~

"I think we _did_ detect it!" Suvi exclaimed suddenly. She began tapping frantically at the haptic interface of her omnitool, a bulky, multi-functional model compared to Sara's sleeker combat version. "It's been driving on my techs absolutely bonkers. We kept thinking it was white noise from one of the new power modules the engineers just attached to Meridian's surface. But you're right! Now that I'm looking for it, it _is_ coming from that damn orb."

~There's more, Pathfinder,~ SAM went on, seemingly oblivious to the triumph of a finally solved puzzle on Suvi's face. ~While Milky Way orbs were clearly designed solely for Prothean physiology and primarily used memory-sensory conveyance, this orb has been programmed for a multitude of message delivery vectors, including audio.~

"Well, then let's hear it!" PeeBee blurted. "C'mon, play it!"

~Pathfinder?~

"Do it, SAM," Sara said, trying not to sound breathless. Would they be the first to hear Prothean spoken aloud? She wasn't aware of any samples of Prothean language proven to be authentic.

After an expectant moment, a low hum began to emanate from Sara's omnitool, courtesy of SAM serving as the medium between the orb and the omnitool's audio output. A mixture of garbled constants, humming vowels, and sibilant hisses hit the air. Something was immediately, powerfully familiar about it. Sara was seized by the intensity of the familiarity, of the absolute knowledge that she had _heard this before_. But where? Had one of the many samples of audio that she'd heard before, provided by charlatans who had claimed to have found working Prothean databanks hidden somewhere far away but easily accessible for a low, low fee of just this many credits… Had one of them ever inadvertently given her a sample of the real thing?

"That doesn't sound Prothean." PeeBee said flatly after a pause.

Scott crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her. Give the man longer hair and some boobs and he'd be a mirror of his sister.

"Oh? Holding out on us? Got a Prothean stashed somewhere who's taught you the lingo?"

" _No_ ," PeeBee shot back at Scott. "But… I don't know. That just doesn't sound like what I thought Prothean would sound like. I know! I know it's stupid, but… I thought it'd be beautiful, not...this."

~It is possible you are not hearing it as it was intended,~ SAM pointed out. ~Due to differences in wavelengths, or air pressure, or ear configuration. It could also be that this speech is indeed not Prothean.~

"Suddenly everyone's a Prothean expert," Liam said. "Even the AI."

"Why don't you think it's Prothean, SAM?" Sara asked. Her voice was quiet, and intense. The voice message was still playing, and the longer it played, the longer she was _sure_ …

With a jolt and a gasp, Sara realized what she was hearing at the same moment SAM said, ~Because the language is Remnant.~

* * *

Sorry for the wait for this. For more reliable updates, check my Ao3; I tend to update that one first, now. Also, yes, I'm still planning on finishing GoS; had a friend who had an early PR copy of Andromeda tell me I might want to wait to finish it until after I'd played it, since they had an idea of how GoS could tie into Andromeda. I have since played it, and decided how I'm gonna finish GoS (no spoilers, don't worry). So yay! :-D


	3. Chapter 3

**The Short Road Home**

 **Amber Penglass**

 **Chapter Three**

Some might have accused Scott Ryder of behaving as he did as a way to express his discontentment over his sister's fame and authority, two things that, it could be argued, would have been his if not for an unlucky twist of fate. Only a quirk of the cryobay's systems had woken Sara a few moments before Scott was to be thawed, instead of the other way around. Had he been awake first, it was entirely possible it would have been him who their father would have named Pathfinder.

Whenever such thoughts were subtly -or not so subtly, in the case of Director Tann- brought to his attention, Scott could do nothing but laugh outright. He was more than happy to leave the pressures of race-saving antics to his one-minute-elder-sibling. Having a fanatic dig through his brain so he could hook himself into a inside-out-planet-slash-super-battery hadn't been fun, and Scott had no desire to play hero. Not that he thought Sara did, but she'd proven she was just that, whether she'd admit it or not.

Besides, being the 'baby' brother of the Initiative's golden girl was better than toting a puppy around; ladies _loved_ the adoring little brother routine.

The solid exception to that rule was one Pelessaria B'sayle. Scott might have been disappointed that such a fun, curvy armful of an asari was pretty much off his radar, except she was the best damn wingman he'd ever had. Point in case, they had only been in Vortex for half an hour before they were settled into a quiet corner booth and he had a nice armful all lined up, thanks to PeeBee. His asari cohort winked at him over the blonde head snuggled against his shoulder, and he gave her a discreet thumbs up; the blonde, still babbling happily, was none the wiser. Or so he thought- then she peered up at him through long lashes and gave him a _wink_.

Hooboy. This was gonna be gre-

His omnitool beeped at him.

Scott froze. There was, of course, no reason to assume that beep meant something that would pull him away from his evening. It could be one of the flood of spam messages (a whole new galaxy, and someone still thought he needed help in the pants department. Ha!), or a late-night hello from-

Another beep. On the blonde's other side, chatting up a furiously blushing engineer with blue eyes and freckles, PeeBee blinked down at her own omnitool.

It could still be nothing. There was no reason to give credence to this sudden conviction that his night was about to be ruined.

PeeBee glanced at the message, then scowled. "Your sister is calling a meeting. An emergency one. Doesn't say anything else."

Scott sighed.

At least the tram, when they boarded it, was pretty much deserted, owing to the late hour. One of the first things the engineers assigned to figuring out Meridian's secrets had focused on was controlling the light of the inside-out-planet to give people reliable day and night cycles. It was still disconcerting to look up at a 'night' sky and see, instead of stars, the glittering lights of the other side of the world.

Scott and PeeBee left the 'fun wing,' as the asari had dubbed it, and headed for the Operations Hub, pretty much still in the same place it had been when the Hyperion Center had been a ship.

Scott could hear the shouting the moment he and PeeBee exited the tramway dock and stepped out into the Operations Hub common area. He exchanged glances with his asari friend, both of them quirking eyebrows. Tann rarely shouted, though people frequently shouted at him. Sara also seldom raised her voice, at least not in anger. Unless Scott was involved, then the percentages were skewed the other direction.

"Damage control?" PeeBee said as they booked it towards the salarian's office.

"You take Sara, I'll figure out what's going on," Scott said by way of agreement. They breezed into the administration offices, and found Sara and the taller Director nearly nose to nose, both of them gesticulating wildly, just inside the main door.

"-arrested for prying into private servers far above your paygrade!"

"You should have told us! We had a right to-"

"-you do not have the authority-"

"This isn't about authority, you fish-licking-"

PeeBee spared a moment to shoot Scott a look and mouth, 'fish-licking?' at him, to which he just shrugged; insults had never been Sara's strong suit. Then the two of them split, with PeeBee interjecting herself into the building argument with her usual irreverent aplomb. Scott, meanwhile, booked it past the three of them to take the steps two at a time. On the level above, seated around the little museum-slash-office-waiting-area was just about everyone Scott considered a friend in Andromeda, plus a few extra.

"Jaal," Scott greeted the angaran, who inclined his head in a return acknowledgement. Scott couldn't exactly call a kettle black when he himself was potting around with all the asari and turian and angaran tail he could, but he'd be lying if he said he sometimes wasn't a little boggled by his sister's choice in partners. He tried not to think about it, because that led to wondering to how angaran male performance measured up to human, and then that led to thinking of equipment involved in said performance paired up with this sister and- gah. Yeah. Better to not go there. At all. Ever.

Liam raised a fist as Scott approached, and he raised his own for a brief, absentminded bump of a hello while making a mental checklist of who else was present. Pretty much the whole Tempest crew, including Suvi. Captain Dunn, Addison, Kresh, all the Pathfinders except for the asari, who was currently dispatched to track down clues to the location of the missing quarian ark. Other than her, though, everyone else of note was there. Scott gave a low whistle and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"So," he said into the tense quiet. "Who's trying to kill us now?"

Off to the side, Drack gave a loud snort. From a krogan, it was a small explosion.

"Your sister," the big veteran groused. "I'm too old to be woken in the middle of the night for anything less than a full fledged brawl. The kid owes me."

"Owes us all, if this message isn't explained soon," Vetra agreed from where she was slumped over one of the couches. Given she was a normal sized turian woman, that meant she was slumped over _all_ of one of the couches.

"I think I know what it is she means to tell us," Suvi said. "But if I'm wrong I'll have panicked everyone for nothing."

"I hardly think this group is prone to panicking," Lexi pointed out. She had been giving Vetra pointed looks, but gave up and now reached down to hook an arm beneath the turian's legs and shove them off the end of the couch. The asari doctor settled into the newly vacated space too swiftly for Vetra to move her legs back. Vetra blinked at the doctor, then with a grunt she swung her legs across Lexi's lap. Lexi gave a resigned sigh, but didn't protest.

"I say we start guessing and taking bets. Whoever guessed closest to the real thing gets their breakfast paid for when we're done here," Liam suggested.

While Sara's people began lobbing ideas and guesses into the air, Scott pulled up his messages on his omnitool. Obviously, Sara had sent out an emergency call to everyone, ordering a midnight gathering. Scott assumed that was part of what had Tann's cloaca all cinched up; he didn't like anyone but him ordering an emergency anything. And, clearly, whatever message had been sent to everyone else had been vague.

Scott was not everyone else.

Sure enough, the message Sara had sent her twin was a bit more detailed. Scott skimmed the message, which was heavily encrypted; he needed SAM's help to read it, and assumed SAM had also been the one to encrypt it in the first place. Then he read it again, and gave a low whistle.

The sound brought the betting to a halt. Everyone glanced his way.

"You guys are gonna love this," Scott said. Down in the office entry hall, PeeBee's attempts to break up the argument had apparently fallen through; the heated tones had begun again, at volume. Scott knew his sister- when she reached that pitch, she could go for hours. He didn't feel like waiting that long.

"SAM?" Scott asked, aloud.

~Yes, Specialist Ryder?~ SAM answered, also aloud, for everyone's benefit.

"I need you to play the audio for one of the memories Sara unlocked. File 29-B Alpha."

In an effort to share a piece of their distant -and now dead- father, Sara had spent much her time in the months after the Archon's fall converting the memories stored in the AI core to something she could gift to her brother. Direct sharing, as SAM had been able to do for Sara, wasn't possible for Scott; he'd joked he didn't have sufficient brain damage.

Scott tended to joke the most about the things that terrified him the worst. Much like with thoughts of alien dong, thinking of Sara having been a literal breath behind following their father was something better not contemplated.

The result of Sara's efforts had been a handful of audio-only files that had featured not only their father's voice, but their mother's. Scott considered them, in his sappier inner moments, among his most prized possessions.

~Are you sure, Scott? That file contains references to a topic deemed Need to Know by Director Tann.~

"Fuck Tann," Addison said, in an uncharacteristic break from her normal adherence to professionalism.

"I'd rather not," Scott replied dryly. To SAM he said, "Play it, SAM."

There was a heartbeat of silence, and then the file began. Scott watched the faces of those around him shift and contort with mixtures of disbelief, horror, and incredulity.

When it was over, there was heartbeat of poignant silence.

Then, "That crazy Shepard woman was _right_?" Captain Dunn said, her words exploding into the stunned quiet.

"Who?" Jaal inquired.

Dunn flicked a glance to the angaran; as the only non-Milky Way former resident present, he would be the only one to not know of the rise to fame and and subsequent fall into disgrace of the household name that was Commander Jane Shepard.

Avitus Rix was the one who spoke up. "I have told you of Spectres, Jaal?"

"At great length," the angaran replied. While his tone was perfectly friendly, Scott snickered. A few others present shot Avitus wry grins; more than one of them had been subjected to the turian waxing poetic about the comparisons between the role of Council Spectre and Initiative Pathfinder.

Avitus ignored them. "Commander Shepard was the first human Spectre."

"A monumental accomplishment, then."

"Very. She got the job in part because she agreed to hunt down one of the Council's greatest embarrassments, a turian Spectre who'd gone off the grid and was attacking ships and colonies."

"Saren was only an embarrassment because the Council took his word over everyone else's for the longest time, and when he went crazy it made them look like the morons they were," Vetra said casually, stretching on the couch, non-too-subtly trying to squeeze Lexi off. The doctor glared at her, but before anything could come of the silent battle, Drack come up to grab Vetra by the shoulders and pull her more firmly to her own side of the couch, giving Lexi plenty of space. Vetra was too surprised to resist.

Avitus gave a turian equivalent of a shrug, then continued, "Shepard brought Saren down, but when the dust settled she claimed that his flagship wasn't some deadly prototype, but a living, partly organic vessel, one of countless more that were waiting in darkspace to come annihilate us all in our beds. What's more, she said that they'd done it before, that they were what wiped out the Protheans. She called them 'Reapers.'" Avitus raised his hands to mimic human air quotations.

At the turian's tone and gesture, Scott's gaze on Avitus sharpened. Apparently Dunn hadn't been the only one to be on the 'Shepard went cuckoo' team.

Jaal looked thoughtful. "I can see where your disbelief originates. It sounds very much like an angaran tale for unruly children. And yet, if this memory of Scott's father is to believed…" He trailed off, glancing in Scott's direction.

"It's not just my dad's word we have to go on," came a clear voice from the top of the steps leading down to the office entry hall. Multiple heads turned to see Sara standing there, Tann striding past her with a deep scowl on his face. In their fixation on Avitus' explanation, no one had realized the shouting from below had stopped.

"So that's what this meeting is about?" Kresh spoke up for the first time. "These 'reapers?' Forgive me for saying so, Pathfinder, but even if they turned out to be real, they're a whole galaxy behind us. I think this news could have waited til morning."

"Maybe," Sara admitted, coming to stand between her brother and Jaal, arms crossed and legs planted at shoulder width. Her eyes sparked with temper and her cheeks were still flushed from her argument with Tann, who, off to the side, was now directing his ire at Scott. Scott flashed him a cheeky grin. He felt no regret for taking the wind out of the salarian's sails.

"And maybe not," Tann continued off of Sara's one word statement, tearing his glare away from Scott to spread it evenly among the room's occupants. As offended as he was at Sara's audacity, he clearly was equally incensed that everyone she'd called had answered, unquestioningly. Doing what he could, now, to take over, Tann brought up his omnitool and synced it with the holographic display at the center of the room. At his prompting, a three dimensional rendering of a structure reminiscent of a cross between an insect and a squid flared into blue existence. For scale, a model of the Hyperion was floating beside it.

"Shortly after the Hyperion's departure from Council space, but well after everyone aboard was in cryo, the Hyperion received a transmission from the Citadel. As it was earmarked for Jien Garson only, and resources were focused elsewhere, it was not until recently that this transmission was brought to my attention. It confirms that yes, Commander Shepard's warnings were accurate. In 2186, a fleet of unknown numbers entered the Milky Way and simultaneously attacked Earth, Thessia, Palaven, and multiple other central worlds. The transmission's main message was to warn us to not turn back. If the worst were to come to pass in the Milky Way, we would be all that would be left."

Liam gave a low whistle. "You know, kinda glad we didn't know about that sooner," he said. "We had pressure enough. Look at the size of that thing!"

"Amen to that," Sara sighed. Some of the fight seemed to go out of her at last. To her side, Jaal reached out a discreet hand to take hers, and give it a mild squeeze. The whole exchange was so brief and casual, Scott doubted anyone but him gave it much attention, if any. For the first time, Scott found himself looking at the taller male with something new in mind- this guy wasn't going anywhere. Huh.

Across the room, Cora raised a hand. "Question," she said. "Still not clear on why this merited a midnight rendezvous."

"Sorry," Sara offered, and brought up her omnitool. "Promise it's important. Just a sec...pulling it up...and...there. Listen."

The bit of mangled vowels and hisses that SAM claimed was the Remnant language -the Jardaan, according to recent discoveries- hit the air. Scott supposed that if anyone could be trusted to identify Jardaan lingo, it would be the AI who'd spent the most time and processing power interfacing with Rem-tech. Thanks to SAM and recovered bits of Kett research, as well as hoarded info from the angara, they almost had a working translation matrix for the whole written language.

Still working at her omnitool, Sara said, "Last week, PeeBee found a Prothean artifact locked behind Remnant doors. Normally, that'd be odd at worst. But with the transmission Tann got - _months_ ago, I might add- the implications are bigger."

"If the Protheans were here at some point, and are gone now, then what if the same thing that wiped them out in the Milky Way wiped them out here," Suvi said, somewhat breathlessly.

"Yeah, pretty much that," Sara confirmed. "Farfetched, I thought, until I did a lil more digging. This recording came out of the Prothean relic. SAM says it's Jardaan, not Prothean, but there's a few words mixed up in recording that I thought I recognized, so I spent all night loading Prothean translation VI's into SAM node, and between that and what we've been compiling on the Jardaan written language… Well, hear for yourselves, and I think you'll understand why I felt a little get together was in order."

Sara hit a key, and the audio file changed tempo as the message was filtered through whatever macguyvered translation VI Sara had put together overnight. Only a handful of words were distinguishable among the static and the hisses, but they had an immediate affect on the room. Suvi blanched, Cora straightened, Liam's ever-present hint of a smile faded, and Drack… Well, Drack turned and pile drived a fist through a decorative glass pane. Scott thought that reaction was particularly appropriate, though Vetra's bark of laughter wasn't far off, either.

' _Reaper...weapon...kssts…out of time...Reaper...weapon...shhhffsts...Reaper...weapon...out of time…'_

Sara gave the room a sheepish sort of shrug and said, "Should I send someone to pick up coffee?"

"Fuck the coffee," PeeBee replied bluntly. "I'm gonna need a drink."

"It's not that bad," Sara said. At the variety of looks she was given she added, "Really! Look, I've already had SAM working on cracking open the Prothean orb, and- here, see for yourselves."

A few keystrokes, and the half-translated message was silenced -Scott spotted Vetra and Avitus rubbing at their ear ridges- before she replaced the hologram of the Reaper and the Hyperion with something that, at first, looked like a visualized fragment of corrupted data. Fascinated, Scott found himself ambling closer, hands in his pockets. He squinted at the display, realized faintly that Suvi and Raeka were doing the same.

"It's a blueprint," the salarian Pathfinder said. "Or, part of one. For what?"

"The weapon," breathed Suvi. "It's a blueprint for the anti-Reaper weapon that message is talking about, isn't it?"

"SAM and I both think so," Sara confirmed. She seemed to hesitate, and caught Scott's eye when he looked at her. In the way that only twins could manage, they communicated without so much as a whisper or a blink. With his agreement, Sara took a breath and looked back to the people gathered and divulged another of their father's secrets. "Before launching from the Milky Way, Alec Ryder was in contact with an asari named Dr. Liara T'soni."

Off to the side, PeeBee choked. Surprised, Sara looked at her.

"You know the name?"

"The name? Yeah, you could say that. Knew the one who used it, too. We might have bumped into each other on a dig site or two. Traded a few, ah, archeological secrets, had a few philosophical exchanges, you know."

"You tried to poach her dig sites, didn't you? And she kicked your ass." Cora said, cutting through PeeBee's evasiveness. The asari blushed.

PeeBee.

 _Blushed._

Scott thought about taking a vid.

"In any case," Sara said, clearly as startled by PeeBee's uncharacteristic reaction as Scott was. "Our dad received a transmission after we left, one he never got to hear, I don't think. Dr. T'soni told him pretty much the same thing Tann's transmission said. Only she mentioned hope- they'd found blueprints for a weapon, too. They didn't know if they'd have time to complete it, but it was something."

"You think this is that weapon," Kresh said, sounding highly intrigued. Scott thought the day a krogan wasn't interested in some new, giant weapon design was the day the galaxy stopped spinning.

Sara gave a light shrug. "Honestly? No idea. But it's a good bet."

"Whatever it is, it's useless without the rest of the blueprint," Raeka said as she circled the hologram. "This fragment isn't nearly enough to extrapolate from. It's a shame the rest of the data is so degraded."

"I don't think it is degraded," Scott said. As people had been talking, he'd been eyeing the display. It reminded him of a puzzle piece, and he said so. "I think it's been deliberately segmented. Which means that the other pieces are elsewhere."

"You all are talking like you're planning on building the thing," Drack barked from beside the pile of ignored glass shards. "If these Reapers wanted us, they would have followed us already. Thought you people were all about opening up shop on your shiny new world. Are you looking for reasons to delay moving in?"

"We have made great progress since our peoples united," Jaal said. "But the fight for peace is far from over, my friend. The Kett have increased in aggression and ability since the Archon's fall, not decreased. If Scott says the pieces to finish this weapon are out there, I would have them found. I cannot imagine a tool of that scope being anything less than invaluable to our cause."

"Ok, great, let me just dig out my Prothean Metal Detector, and we can go sifting through the thousand or so worlds that are nearby," Liam said. "Where would we even _begin_?"

"Actually…" Suvi spoke up, eyes fixed on the blueprint. "That's...not so bad an idea."

"It isn't?" Liam blinked. "I mean, uh, of course it isn't. Knew that."

"When SAM tipped me off to the odd signal the orb was sending out, I was able to isolate it easily," the scientist went on as if Liam had not spoken. "It's very unique. Short ranged, but unique. I think I could come up with something to enable the Tempest to detect it once it was within a certain range."

"Do it," Tann said, in the tone that told everyone he was taking control of the gathering once more. "Even if these Reapers never show up here, which I thoroughly doubt they will, anything powerful enough to combat the ones who annihilated the relay-builders will be of tremendous help against the Kett. Dr. Anwar, how long will you be in developing this detector?"

"Hard to say," Suvi said. "I'll need copies of all the research you've done so far, Sara."

"Get started now," Tann said. "Pathfinders, be prepared to be dispatched as soon as Dr. Anwar has a working detector. I want probable search vectors developed yesterday. Ms. B'sayle, Jaal, as the closest thing we have to resident experts on the locations of Remnant sites, you will be spearheading that."

PeeBee sighed, and Jaal nodded, while Liam's hand shot into the air as he headed for the door. "I call dibs on coffee and donut duty. Message me your requests, be back in an hour."

"Here we go again," Scott said under his breath when he was close enough to Sara. She shot him a weary smile.

"You're not gonna get to sleep through this one, little brother," she told him. "I want you front and center with me."

"To pick up your slack?"

"To use your giant head as a meat shield."

"Touche." He nudged her side with his elbow, and in a more serious tone said, "Good find, sis. This could be good. Real good."

Sara looked to where her people had separated into various task groups, as easily and seamlessly as a dream. Vetra and Kresh were already looking at the blueprint portion to begin to guesstimate what materials would be needed, while Drack was getting his son-in-law on a comm channel to advise him to start recruiting muscle for big-scale work details in the near future. To the side, Suvi and Raeka were talking tech for the detector, and beside them PeeBee and Jaal were bent over a galactic map being projected from PeeBee's omnitool. The familiar sight was both heartwarming and heart wrenching.

"I should have ignored SAM and gone to the damn waterfall on Aya," Sara groused, mostly to herself. Then she sighed, punched her brother lightly in the shoulder and said, "Let's get to work."

* * *

There won't be much Scott POV in this, but here and there just to give some variety. Also, I'm really not trying to write Tann as an asshole (even if he kinda is one), because in real life I'd have to have a least a smidge of respect for the guy. He may be a bureaucrat, but he's damn good at his job, and him doing it and doing it well means someone else doesn't have to deal with it. So there's that. I guess.

Jaal/Sara goodness soon, promise!


End file.
